Wednesday 22 January 2014 14.51 EST
First published on Wednesday 22 January 2014 14.51 EST

The British Olympic Association and the International Olympic Committee have moved quickly to dismiss a series of threats to teams heading for the Winter Games in Sochi as "lacking credibility".

Amid heightened concern about the possibility of terrorists targeting the Sochi Winter Olympics, which will be protected by an unprecedented "ring of steel" by Russian police, the army and security forces, several European Olympic federations received "suspicious" messages.

The BOA confirmed that it was among several Olympic associations – also including Italy, Germany, Hungary and Slovenia – that received emails or letters with similar content on Wednesday.

The Olympics, which at $51bn (£30bn) are the most expensive in history, will be protected by 40,000 law enforcement and special services officers. Privately, Russian officials and Olympic security experts accept that the threat is high, but believe that terrorists are far more likely to strike away from the heavily fortified security zone around Sochi itself.

The IOC declared that the threat sent on Wednesday "appears to be a random message from a member of the public", while the BOA director of communications, Darryl Seibel, said it would not alter the stringent security operation in place to protect British athletes at the Games.

The BOA said: "We have received what appears to be the same email that many other federations have received and the IOC has responded to state very clearly that in their view there is nothing of substance to this. In addition we have had our own experts take a look at this and they have responded in exactly the same way by stating that this is nothing credible.

"Organisations like ours receive correspondence of every type and it is not uncommon to come across something like this that lacks credibility. It is extremely important in matters such as this that everyone maintains a level head and a sensible perspective."

The BOA chef de mission, Mike Hay, who went to Sochi to formally enter the British team in advance of the opening ceremony on 7 February, last week met the Foreign Office and the Met police for a security intelligence update.

"The number one priority of the BOA is the security and safety of our delegation. It is the responsibility of the host organising committee and the federal government to ensure the safety of the Games. We, in turn, have security measures. They have been in place for a long time. I won't talk about the detail for obvious reasons, but we are speaking to all the agencies and we will have security staff embedded in our team," he said.

He said: "In this day and age you can never be 100% sure it's going to be safe but security has been high up the agenda of the Sochi organising committee since they were awarded the Games. Nothing I've seen in my many visits there has convinced me that won't be the case."

In a YouTube video, the two men who claimed responsibility for the attacks added: "If you will hold the Olympics you will get a present from us for all the Muslim blood that has been spilled."

Putin, who visited the Olympic region this week, is adamant the Games will be safe and said the Russian authorities had a "perfect understanding" of the threat and their means of combating it.

On Tuesday, the US president, Barack Obama, spoke to Putin about the security effort. A White House statement said they discussed how best to advance US-Russian interests "including a safe and secure Sochi Olympics, for which the United States has offered its full assistance".